Green Valley is the place to be

Check out New Enterprise Associates’ 12th and largest fund: $2.5 billion for technology and health care start-ups and other larger deals.

Peter Barris, NEA’s managing general partner, told Venture Wire that about half the fund, depending on market conditions, will go for “venture growth equity,” projects that require $30 million to $100 million from the East Coast based firm, unlike the typical start-up that usually only needs a few million to get going.

That kind of investment could help an existing company branch into a new business or buy new technology or could launch a brand new company.

With access to so much money out there, NEA isn’t the only venture firm looking beyond the early stage of investing to growth equity or buyouts, Venture Wire says. Oak Investment Partners, which pioneered the strategy after the tech meltdown, recently closed a $2.56 billion fund, the largest venture fund ever raised. But NEA’s move is interesting since it perpetuates a new trend for the firm, going from first-round investor to taking on bigger, later-stage projects.

NEA is breaking with its own traditions in another respect: going with a fixed management fee rather than setting management fees based on an annual budget of expenses greenlighted by its limited partners. An investor told Venture Wire that annual fee is 1.25 percent.